23 May 2007

from the university of mexican cooking and beautiful ancient woman, comes

Chiles en Nogada

literally translates as " chiles in your nose" or "chiles in dark walnut wood" or something too poetic for these rough fingers to pass along. you must start as Senora Lopez-Sol does, meditating not on the dish nor your desires nor even the bloody succession that is the history of mexico, but rather those young stomachs to whom you've dedicated your life, and what they simply will not eat.

in this case the traditional filling has been politely rejected by two young guests on pseudo-religious grounds (it's the only way to explain it over here, that works). both the traditional and vegetarian fillings have been rejected by a studious son.

so the warm light finds two senoras and three pans sizzling around the stove and you my friend are going to hear about the vegetarian one.

1 apple1 peach1 combined cup of pinenuts, walnuts, almondnutsas many raisins as you had almonds

saltpepperthe infamous "salsa inglesa"

that's shopping for the filling but when you get to the kitchen the first thing you're going to do is roast the chiles. whole green chile poblanos, mercilessly decapitated, deseeded, and deveined before laying them next to the sacred gas fire. the skin will blister, pop, and blacken; they will be done long after you try to remove them from the fire. which is to say: maintain hope! trust the coming blackness and retire the chiles from the flame (always turning, seeking greener angles) only when entirely soft and black.

as each chile finishes (you might be able to handle two or three at a time) move it to a plastic bag or otherwise sealed environment, so its own steaming flesh may help to loosen the burned papery skin.

this whole time, as you're waiting for the second chile to roast -- the first one we were mesmerized, briefly saved from the monotony of time -- you've been cutting onions and eggplant, mushrooms and fruit.

the onions you cut first and set to sauté in olive oil on medium heat, adding the eggplant and mushrooms when translucent. i didn't see her do it, but you could salt the eggplant and let them sweat before carrying them to the fire -- just be sure to rinse and to lightly squeeze off the bitter juices.

as they vegetables cook down you humans soak the almonds and walnuts in hot water to blanche the tan perfection of their skins, exposing the tender white underbellies within. the almonds will be easier and the walnuts perhaps impossible, depending on your species. if you can't, then you can't. eat one and move on.

chop all the fruits and nuts. even the raisins. mix together or keep in separate beautiful ceramic bowls so when the masses come in for another beer they Know the coming Beauty.

add the fruits, salt, and pepper to your vegetables when they seem to have given up most of their water. take a breath to contemplate the " salsa inglesa". a translation and appopriation of the british "worcestershire", the "salsa inglesa" seems to be a swamp broth of low-quality soy sauce, vinegar, MSG, and caramel coloring. if i had any moral force upon which to draw and speak with authority, i would recommend against it.

perhaps one day, vendra.

perhaps your assistants have peeled their peppers. perhaps they have taken the green and black wonders from their hermetic cave and gently scraped them with a small knife, flaking off the black paper to reveal a tender verdant flesh below. perhaps they have placed the peppers, intact and lovingly prepared, on a blue ceramic plate for your stuffing pleasure.

perhaps not.

in any case, you've managed your relleno until moist but not wet -- soft chunks of fruit, tender vegetables, rehydrated bits of nut, a pleasant and soft sweetness, the smiling west wind. you will have a pan of hot filling in one hand and a plate of empty peppers in the other. the rest is as obvious as the spring.

for the salsa, the real "nogada", brace yourself, bury any sympathies for the rights of mammalian bodily fluids, and collect the following:

before proceeding it's very important to order your ideological priorities. personally i don't eat white sugar. personally, i don't dig on factory dairy products. personally, to be totally honest, i only eat organic fruits and vegetables. and i know i am not the only one.

the joke is there's very little that is personal in the real world, the world of dust and grandmothers and unconditional love and rolling down the river without a semblance of a helmet. so when three generations of beautiful mexican women are teaching me how to live and the 13th chapter of the gospel involves two heaping plastic spoons of heaping plastic sugar, i'm too caught up in the gratitude (with a side of hunger and a rotting sweet tooth) to complain.*

ahem.

blend over any controversy, taste for sweetness -- more than a tad, less than a smoothie -- and serve, lavishly over the top of the stuffed, reposing chiles. it's fundamental to the tradition to garnish with chopped cilantro and pomegranate seeds, whether they're in season or not. which is why it's best to control the young egos of spring and save the effort for the just time.

pictures to come.

in siesta,ankurbhai

* ps: if it gets to the point in my life where i have a choice about anything, i would make a mixed walnut/almond cream (3/1), thinner than "butter" and thicker than "milk", and use that for the nogada. moreso i'd dash in the lightest dust of cinnamon (if anybody guesses, it's too much) and a spoon of cactus honey for the sweetener. if i didn't have the money to buy the nuts i would get (plain) soy yogurt or make it from (plain) soymilk, to whip and possibly to thin. either way the vegan and animal kingdom parts of your soul can relax, and with the former there's no taint of the big monoculture industries...

The Real 10 Days Mexico lows on burritos and highs on tacos. It's where the fear is thick and the crime is real. All the women are beautiful, some are Indian, and most are in high school.

It's okay though, generally, because it's the Real 10 Days Mexico and everybody buys hot tortillas and wraps them in homebrought towels and there's six* kinds of mangos in the market and it's not sepia like Traffic told me (at all!) but rather a scrubby grey green of contaminated air and tall trees and cigarettes at the end of the line, time.

Though in the Real 10 Days Mexico there is a lot of all kinds of traffic and lana* and corruption and the police on horseback bid me halt to talk Buddhism for an hour so you can be sure nobody's really evil like a mestizo version of that Fine Balance. And even though everyone in the ads is white the taco women are brown and bold and sharp enough and here neither in the Real 10 Days Mexico is there a bad mango and so what if the children in general are fat. It's from the cheese and the closeness to that wide parched border, gateway of endless slurping desire.

Because in the Real 10 Days Mexico they celebrate 16 September and leave 5 Mayo for the gringos along with the tortilla chips and twister tequila rituals. I mean they have Margaritas but it's more the Micheladas* that make them sing, but at least the guacamole is real, 10 Days Mexico Real, and even the half-Mexicans you meet know how to make it good.

The restaurants are expensive and generally empty and the peasants are poor and the politicians bathe in their salty impunity as we all imagined anyways. So some things change and some things don't but it's real true the girls smile and brush against you between stalls in the market or football field or wherever it is that you are, and well that's what holds it together, for me, after these Real 10 Days.

- ankurbhai

[editors notes -- * actually eight. there may be other mistakes or prejudices* meaning wool. but really, graft, bribery, personal gain* with worcestershire sause, not just salt lime and chile ]

21 May 2007

As the days go on and the action at Cerro Quemado (may 31st) gets nearer, I'm preparing more and more. It's in the walking and the meditaiton and the long hours with strangers, making mole and talking life and interviewing Sonyaji.

She told a little more about some of the previous actions, a few days ago. A morning prayer at the Sabarmati Ashram where they find a team of workers with a crane and noise all going at 5h00 in the morning. So Sonya goes down and breaks all kinds of Indian protocols and class barriers and invites and cajoles and demands that they leave their work and attend the true Work. And they call their offices and headquarters and wake up the Gods know who and eventually come and everyone prays together.

The same Sarva Dharma Prathana that I sing every morning. It might be the only tune I know, written by Vinoba Bhave and recited every morning at Manav Sadhana and maybe everywhere else.

Sonyaji's learning me that "working for the peace we understand that the peace is very diifcult to reach and we start working for reconciliation, which must be our first step on the path to peace". It is a way for the grand and noble conscious to aterrizar a little, to come back to the concrete of domestic squabbles and poltical intrigue.

It's a way to take the global and make it local, to start with the heart and move, reconciling, to the friends and to the families. Putting the building blocks of kindess and positivity together; the foundation for the peace that is coming. The personal reconciliation and then the public one.

talking to the fruit juice man this morning, he asked me what name i had for dios and i said krishna but really brother it's god that's love and told him about the event last night, the misa of the sufis and the singing and dancing, not what you would expect from these media these muslims live in a grove of peace and love and their liturgy is rumi of his nations and his gentle reflections on the agape, the unconditional love.

and he was like, well, you know, i really dig what you're saying. this from a moustached middle-aged mexican man running a styrofoam juice bar on the side of the ride. no long-haired hippie activist spiritual ombliguista we're talking to.

slowly as he humbles through oranges and grapefruit makes peoples juices and with them their days. all of this, "dios es el dueno de todo, the dueno of the creation". he has made all of this, the celery and even the mangos.

it's pretty clear to both of it. is it mango season after all.

"we can call him jehova in spanish or yahweh but he is the father and you know the important thing is that well do you think the father would create a large fire a hell of fire and sending his children there"

no, no uncle i don't.

im pretty excited to say no and i shake my head at him and there are some moments shared as i reach over the glass and jars of cut fruit -- all part of gods creation -- and shake his hand yes no i dont see how the father would do anything but care for his snotty kids.

it was just like the painting jessica showed me yesterday on the tour of san angel and coyoacan, the barefoot carmelite convent with the huge mural of a mother hen sacred mary and all her carmelite children, nuns on one side boys on the other, like chicks tufted in her holy wings. and that's how the juice man feels i think though he's probably never been down to that part of the town, as a working man shouldn't, and that's how i feel on a good day under a kind moon.

he continues, as humans are wont to do:

"and then look at this world!"

"hijole!" [ damn ! ]

"look at all these beuatiful women, so many beautiful women!" there's the woman he works with, she blushes and i blush and there's no telling whose wife or duaghter or mother she is but well you know what i think she's beautiful,

"and look at these beautiful women and hijole!" he trails off into a private paradise and leaves me smiling at his partner.

"not just women but the animals too! and have you seen horses running", wiping down the counter, "its all from god", rinsing the juicer, "the birds! and the birds are animals too, and part of the Owner's creation, the garcas and pelicanos and eagles and, well, yes!"

and he's on to fruit cocktails with whipped cream and honey and granola and top and i'm off to work you know but its everywhere all around all the time its the air we breathe as he said. And the sufis too last night in the liturgy too before the dances, that we are like the wish and the god is the water we swim so much we have no idea its even there, that this very gift of energy and sunlight and prana and what it is we call Life slipping through our fingers and into our smiles, it's just everywher all the time so Thank You.

17 May 2007

in the plaza de las tres culturas in tlateloco, where the 1968 student matanza happened (more details after i see the movie tomorrow), denali and i encountered a stone inscription, carved in memory of present and past, that on such and such a day Cuautemoc fell to the power of Cortes, and

"it was neither triumph nor defeat, it was the painful birth of the mestizo people that is this mexico, today"

*

a darker twist on my theories of interracial marriage (and heightened beet consumption) being the fundamental prerequisite for world peace. the mestizaje in this country was a violent one, a forced mixing of indigenious blood with spanish conquerors and spanish missionaries, african warriors and african slaves. the people are as beautiful as you might imagine but there's not the same lightness and postmodern pleasure in the mixture here; perhaps the mestizaje happened early enough that instead of developing a consciousness of unity (or in addition to the roots of it), they have developed an actual race in itself, a mix that preserves its mixture and thus certian features of its "doloroso nacimiento" that fill the crime reports and avenues until today.

chiles at the post in mercado la merced, yesterday between mangos for 2 points a kilo and a witches cauldron of guanabana puree. i'll also have you know there are four kinds of sapote i've seen -- the mamey sapote (salmon colored, vulvlic seeds, really sweet), the chickoo sapote (common to india, very sweet, brown), the white sapote (green on the outside, haven't tried it), and the black sapote (a ball of gooey tar that uz once descibed as mexican acai and im compelled to agree. it is pudding).

all of which speaks to the infinite density of the amazonian project, how exotics we view as singular from afar turn out to be whole communities of exotic goodness up front. there as many kinds of apples as wines with as many varities and subtleties of perfume. we learned the same about mangos in india -- the pepper mango, the coconut mango, etc -- and now im learning that the once fabled and unique sapote is in reality a whole family of strange fruit trees shedding their sweet goodness on the violent crowns of this tropical mestizaje.

(back to the chiles)

ancho (reddish with a clear hint, a dried poblano)mulato (almost black)pasilla (longer skinnier spicier than the first two)

chile del arbol and the puyaguajillo

moritamorameco (the last three all beings kinds of chipotle, which is a form of dried xalapeno, i think...)

14 May 2007

"The poem is the dream made flesh, in a two-fold sense: as work of art, and as life itself, which is a work of art. When man becomes fully conscious of his powers, his role, his destiny, he is an artist and he ceases his struggle with reality. He becomes a traitor to the human race. He creates war because he has become permanently out of step with the rest of humanity. He sits on the doorstep of his mother's womb with his race memories and his incestuous longings and he refuses to budge. He lives out his dream of Paradise. He transmutes his real experience of life into spiritual equations. He scorns the ordinary alphabet which yields at most only a grammar of thought, and adopts the symbol, the metaphor, the ideograph. He writes Chinese. He creates an impossible wold out of an incomprehensible language, a lie that enchants and enslaves men."

3 jan 1937 from henry miller to lawrence durrell, apparently from a book miller writes on d.h. lawrence

*

that's kind of how things are these days. sunlight on freshly shaven face and the jaw still sore from the force of the cheap razor. we had an action of safai last night and ill write about it with an update but for now to report that after Mango Week, during which erik and i only ate raw food and listen to live music, im back onto the beans and rice and corn and chiles and mexico is filling me with enthusiam for the world of the wikis and creating a mandala of love and starting an illiterary magazine and all the other deliria and debrayes. rest assured.

looks like monsoon hotel is coming out in a couple of works and we're working with the website designers to have the technical background up in time. look out for a cd release part on flag day. as it should be.

10 May 2007

this is how it can be done. just a point of cultural comparison, mas alla del huitlacoche and incessant traffic (of all kinds, naturally).

today is mother's day. may 10th. a national holiday giving all women a paid holiday and everybody else a half day off. everyone recommends not going out as if their would be riots, because of the incredilbe amount of happy smiling mothers out eating and buying things and whatnot.

so, happy mothers day everyone. there is a monument to the mother in the middle of mexico city, huge and alongside a concrete plaza where protesting farmers camp and prostitutes ply their wares. its not frequented much from what i can tell and i'd go out to check today but im too afraid to leave the house.

09 May 2007

this is the invitation i just translated for the event we're putting together may 31st in san luis potosi. more information and background on the project at our website, which i'm currently trying to edit.

*

Action Cerro Quemado (Real de Catorce)31st of May, 2007Full moon

Following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, we invite all participants to offer this action in Silence and with respect for the Earth. A SILENT WALK IN THE PRACTICE OF AHIMSA

Contents:

I. InvitationII. Lines of ActionIII. Program of ActionIV. Logistics

I. INVITATION

Dear Friends of OraWorldMandala,

On October 2nd of 2006, in the Sabarmati Ashram, Mahatma Gandhi's center of operations for many years, we opened the Archive of the Earth: the union of earth from India and Mexico symbolically marking the cultural alliance between two ancient civilizations on opposite sides of the globe, which have united in the common cause of Ahimsa. It is Ahimsa, Mahatma Gandhi's message of love for all life through active non-violence, which threads through the fabric of our actions, experiments, and lives. (see http://www.oraworldmandala.org)

The Archive of the Earth is a large earthen vessel, traditionally used in India to store grains or water. Now this Archive is open to receive earth from all over the world, offered by people and institutions who share a vision of a peaceful planet and are ready to explore their own evolution as a means of achieving this larger Peace.

On the other side of the world from India's Sabarmati Ashram, we find the Cerro Quemado in Real de Catorce, the sacred mountain of the native Wisharrika, better known as the Huicholes. On the 10th and 11th of June, 2006, we ceremonially collected and offered earth to the Archive, sealing the alliance between India and Mexico. (see the fourth action, http://www.oraworldmandala.org)

OraWorldMandala has committed to return to the Huicholes for five years -- each year finds us alongside the Huicholes' elder shamans, collecting the earth of the Cerro Quemado for the Archive, building together the road to Ahimsa.

Continuing with this commitment, the 2nd offering of earth will take place under the full moon on the 31st of May, 2007. Once again, we will walk in silent pilgrimage from Real de Catorce to the sacred Cerro Quemado, guided by the Huicholes. The installation of the Eye of Truth, a work of art created with colorful threads and bamboo by the participants in the form of a Tsikuli (a sacred tool of the Huicholes) will close the ceremony.

The intention of this second offering of the earth is to promote Ahimsa as the point of convergence among different belief systems, and to benefit the well being of all.

OraWorldMandala invites you once again to join this action and offering on the 31st of May and 1st of June, 2007, Cerro Quemado (Real del Catorce).

II. LINES OF ACTION

Cerro Quemado, an important center of Huiricuta Natural and Cultural Reserve, is located in the mountains of Sierra de Catorce. The Huiricuta Reserve is the first protected area in Mexico created specifically to conserve spaces sacred to humans in addition to its biodiversity. The Chihuahua Desert, of which Huiricuta is a part, is one of the three most biologically rich semideserts on the planet. The reserve includes the traditional route of the native Wisharika, in the state of San Luis Potosi, culminating at Cerro Quemado.

The respect shown to this Sacred Ground by the native Wisharika is a microcosm of what we would like to express on a planetary level. The current action proposes a Silent walk in the practice of Ahimsa. Indeed, it is Ahimsa, Mahatma Gandhi's message of love for all life through active non-violence, which threads through the fabric of our actions, experiments, and lives.

"When one comes to think of it one cannot help feelingthat nearly half the misery of the world woulddisappear if we, fretting mortals, knew the virtue ofsilence. Before modern civilization came upon us, at least six to eight hours of silence out of twenty-fourwere vouchsafed to us. Modern civilization has taughtus to convert night into day and golden silence intobrazen din and noise. What a great thing it would be if we in our busy lives could retire into ourselveseach day for at least a couple of hours and prepareour minds to listen in to the Voice of the GreatSilence. The Divine Radio is always singing if wecould only make ourselves ready to listen to It, but it's impossible to listen without silence." M.K. GANDHI - Harijan, 24/9/1938, p.267 (from "Notes")

III. PROGRAM OF ACTION

Guided by Wisharika elders.

To maintain the intention of promoting Ahimsa as the goal of this convergence of different beliefs, and for the wellbeing of all, we humbly ask all participants to respect Silence and Unity during the entire action.

Thursday 31st of May 2007

15.30 hrs. Meeting in Plaza Hidalgo to share the schedule and discuss logistics..

17.00 hrs. The Silent pilgrimage beings to Cerro Quemado (the Wisharika open the sacred doors)

19.00 hrs. Fire ritual in the middle of sacred circle (in Silence)

Dusk Prayer in silence, the setting of the sun in Mexico bringing forward the dawn in India. Each person, following his or her tradition, belief, or simple perception, maintains their focus in Silence.

20.00 hrs. Sharing of food in Silence

21.00 hrs. Circle around the fire, listen and dance to the traditional music of the Wisharika

23.00 hrs. Official preparation of the Marakame's song (chant of the elder shaman). The natives prepare the offerings. Observe in silence.

24.00 hrs. The Marakame's Song. At this moment, in silence, we unite in the sincere attempt to understand the significance of our action: the offering of earth from Cerro Quemado to the Archive of the Earth located in the ashram of a man called Mahatma Gandhi. (see I. Invitation).

Listen to the song, asleep or awake, around the Fire in Silence.

The answer arrives in its own perfect time.

Dawn Sun Salutation and candle offering (and acknowledging as well the birthday of the Buddha), maintaining silence.

Earth offerings. In a circle around the Fire, each person takes a small amount of earth to offer to the Archive of the Earth at the Sabarmati Ashram. In the wake of the Marakame's Song, we unite our lands in conscience of the Mandala's future.

Next, we install the Eye of Truth, a work of art created from bamboo and threads of various colors, in the form of a Tsikuli, sacred tool of the Huicholes. Continue in silence.

Safai: Before returning to the town of Real de Catorce, we peform Safai to leave the Cerro Quemado clean. Mahatma Gandhi lived his entire life yoked to this discipline (Safai means cleaning in Hindi). This last stage, also, in silence.

After our descent we will meet in the watchman's house. The silence ends to allow a constructive dialogue and to share OraWorldMandala's plan for actions in 2007-2008.

All actions will be recorded for an experiment in consciousness research by PEARlab/I.C.R.L (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research/International Consciousness Research Laboratories).

08 May 2007

"When one comes to think of it one cannot help feelingthat nearly half the misery of the world woulddisappear if we, fretting mortals, knew the virtue ofsilence. Before modern civilization came upon us, atleast six to eight hours of silence out of twenty-fourwere vouchsafed to us. Modern civilization has taughtus to convert night into day and golden silence intobrazen din and noise. What a great thing it would beif we in our busy lives could retire into ourselveseach day for at least a couple of hours and prepareour minds to listen in to the Voice of the GreatSilence. The Divine Radio is always singing if wecould only make ourselves ready to liste to It, butit's impossible to listen without silence."

07 May 2007

I'm at a meeting with the OraWorldMandala staff and it's something of a party with vino tinto and fake pig skin chips and of course I brought some mangos and the star for me is this gentleman Ali. He's past the youth but no less earnest and Muslim though wasn't born that way. I couldn't tell though from the shape of his face and fire in his eyes I could swear he was born hard square loving arab muslim and all of it.

And the whole time we're trying to talk out ideas about non-violence and reconciliation, put them into practice with the May 31st event and the October 2nd event Ali is relentless about action.

Karen Armstrong makes a strong point (in _Islam_) that Islam and Judaism are "othropractical" religions, as opposed to Christianity being an "orthodoxical" religion. Whereas the latter places importance on speech and belief (ie accepting the lord into your heart) the formers actually want you to do certain things -- if you don't practice Ramadan and tithe and all that, you're not really a Muslim. Is her point anyways and Ali shows that pretty well, with no tolerance for ank-style silent meditation nights and getting together and sharing energy. The brother is big and in motion and wants to do something.

He's been getting to know the Hindu community here in DF, which I think mainly consists of the Hare Krishna folk, and is frustrated at being invited to participate in their events (which already is awesome, considering the last fifity and few hundred years of Hindu/Muslim nonsense) instead of to help present them. He doesn't want to see their temple, he wants to help them build one.

What can Ali do for them? He's been reading some Gandhi, always dangerous, and getting into this idea of Ahimsa is Love and Love is Submission (Islam, in Arabic) and that means I am devoted to You and really, at every moment, what can Ali do for you.

Neither of us are supposed to be drinking but it's a postmodern world and after the deep red has faded to dregs of Chilean Merlot it's even harder not to interrupt someone with your latest greatest important idea that supercedes the eternal doctrine of listening. Which is maybe why they recommended against the Merlot in the first place. But eventually we sort it out, inspired by the Jayeshbhai part of the Self.

We're going to map out a mandalic route through Mexico city and try a morning/day/night walk hitting a holy house of all the major religions, once we can get figure out where they are.

What can Ali do for them?

But first we're going to start with Safai. Gandhi's pet activity and nourished in us all by everystar from our mothers to sacred plant experiences to Gandhi's very ashram. And all this talk of the here and now got me excited enough to demand we set a date and time that very minute to gather together -- at least the two of us, the foundation must be built -- and get to together and clean one of these nasty parks or something.

So it's going to be 11h00 on Sunday May 6th which has nothing to do with Maximillian and they don't celebrate that here anyhow. We're going to meet at the lotus feet of Gandhi, at his statue across from the Museum of Anthropology in the Bosque de Chapultepec, Mexico City, United States of Mexico. We'll each bring a broom and the converted Sufi and imported Indian will clean Gandhi's piece of Mexican parkland and look forward to new beginnings, today and every today here ever after.

Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870Mother's Peace Day

The first person to fight for an official Mother's Day celebration in the United States was Julia Ward Howe. You may be more familiar with her name as the writer who wrote the words to the Civil War song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic:

Howe was born in New York City on May 27, 1819. Her family was well respected and wealthy. She was a published poet and abolitionist. She and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, co-published the anti-slavery newspaper The Commonwealth. She was active in the peace movement and the women's suffrage movement. In 1870 she penned the Mother's Day Proclamation. In 1872 the Mothers' Peace Day Observance on the second Sunday in June was held and the meetings continued for several years. Her idea was widely accepted, but she was never able to get the day recognized as an official holiday. The Mothers' Peace Day was the beginning of the Mothers' Day holiday in the United States now celebrated in May.

The modern commercialized celebration of gifts, flowers and candy bears little resemblance to Howe's original idea. Here is the Proclamation that explains, in her own powerful words, the goals of the original Mother's Day in the United States...

Arise then...women of this day!Arise, all women who have hearts!Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!Say firmly:"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,For caresses and applause.Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearnAll that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.We, the women of one country, Will be too tender of those of another countryTo allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosum of a devastated Earth a voice goes up withOur own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe our dishonor,Nor violence indicate possession.As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,Let women now leave all that may be left of homeFor a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the meansWhereby the great human family can live in peace...Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God -In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly askThat a general congress of women without limit of nationality,May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenientAnd the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,The amicable settlement of international questions,The great and general interests of peace.

04 May 2007

i flew alaska airlines from san francisco through los angeles to mexico city and i checked my very old but cute laptop under the plane.

i have done this to various other countries with no negative results.

as soon as i picked up my bag in mexico i knew something was wrong and immediately opened it to find the laptop gone but the nice indian ba pooja had given me to be intact (that is, still falling apart). i filed a report before going out to say good morning to jesica and have since called once and of course there is nothing to be followed upon.

another interesting twist was there was a note from some company contracted by the US Transportation Security Agency saying they had searched my bag (in SF). so maybe they took it.

or maybe it had written enough books and thesis of various humans and willed itself to some sort of elysian field of skinny shiny mobile computation.so dont check your expensive stamp collection or anything on a plane to mexico especially if you're inuit: jessica and erik shake their heads between mangoid offerings and note how five friends in the last year have been similarly "equalized" as it were in the grand game of possession and detachment.

pilgrims be ware.

IN OTHER NEWS

everything has of course been happening at once and i have very little inclination for internet cafes but here i am working on the Ora World Mandala and jesica between planning her wedding and giving gringo tours is translating the O Bigode into mexican slang and today I'm meeting with peasants and teachers and eventually the famous non-existent Other Side trying to learn more about the uprisings in Oaxaca and Vera Cruz and it's increasingly clear to me -- every day more, and it's never going to stop methinks -- how land reform has always been and will continue to be the focal point of what we need to make this a world fit for humans and plants alike.